Take one pair of doting grandparents. Add 18 grandchildren of toddler to college age—and all their parents. Sprinkle in a wide variety of friends. Mix in a careful and versatile design, and it's the perfect recipe for a kitchen in a contemporary home in the Connecticut woods.

"This is a second home, and the owners wanted a kitchen that was formal enough for large catered parties yet casual enough for the grandkids to come, sit on a bar stool at the counter and grab a quick bite," says architect Lisa Gray, of New Haven, Connecticut–based Gray Organschi Architecture, who designed the three-level house on the side of a hill. "It's like a sophisticated tree house."

The 300-square-foot, free-flowing kitchen is ideal for the style of entertaining the owners enjoy. One end of the room sits on-grade, and so facilitates easy carting of groceries from the car, while the other end opens onto an elevated grassy courtyard and kitchen garden, where fresh herbs await picking. The space adjoins a formal living room dominated by a stone fireplace that's nearly big enough to stand up in.

The kitchen's simple style, which includes birch plywood cabinets, Chinese limestone flooring and cast-concrete countertops, was designed to emphasize the openness of the architecture. An illuminated glass backsplash adds more task lighting where it's needed. A wall of shimmering mosaic tiles in orange, sienna and ochre forms a graphic backdrop for the cooktop, and a sliding birch door connected to this wall hides the kitchen from guests when dinner parties are in full swing.

Several styles of storage space add visual interest to the room. On the exterior wall overlooking the woods and pond, base cabinets provide drawer storage with open shelves and glass-fronted cabinets on the wall above. "We used frosted glass because we didn't want items inside to have to be perfectly arranged," Gray says. "This helps because it's a big kitchen, and we wanted it to be clear where everything is stored. We also varied the size of the storage drawers so the owners could better remember where things are put away."

The kitchen, which is stylish without looking conventional, really springs to life, Gray says, "when the fire is going, the children are playing, the guests are mingling in the living room and the cook is at the sink working and looking out at the pond."

Design Points

Put 'Er There
Custom-fitted drawers are de rigueur in a kitchen that's expected to serve many people. To handle large family gatherings efficiently, everything—from teaspoons to roasting pans—should be stowed with precision.

Recessed Relief
An alcove next to the double wall ovens can act as either an auxiliary set-down area (the island is in front of the ovens) or as a display niche.

Do An End Run
For convenience, and to avoid foot-traffic snarls in the kitchen, some storage can be accessed from outside the kitchen. Open shelves at the end of cabinet runs are great space-stretchers.

Extra Texture
On the side of the peninsula that faces the dining area, using perforated wooden screen maintains the materials palette but adds a bit of unexpected visual interest.

Shelf Service
Simple, shapely dishware is a pleasure to look at when framed by fixed shelves of varying sizes. Frosted glass doors obscure the less-than-perfect items.